Vollis Visionaries

Artist Statement

My abstract series, “Vollis”, inspired by Vollis Simpson’s whirligigs, was born the day I walked into the Whirligig Restoration Warehouse in Wilson, where I saw close-up the pieces and parts of whirligigs in various stages of restoration. I saw paintings immediately, with the whirligigs connecting realism to abstraction. I have been hooked ever since. I have been back many times, and always see something new!

Thanks to my years of training in design at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, I have always always sought to build strong compositional elements into my paintings. Recent years of study in abstraction with John Salminen taught me a process that has grown to be my own… and is still developing. By consistently painting with a community of artists at Barton College, and study intensives at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, I am finding my voice. I am somewhere between subjective and abstract design. Every day is a voyage of discovery.

The “Vollis” series, in some ways, makes these huge contraptions more accessible. Hardly anyone has a place to install a 20’x20’ whirligig, but I am capturing the life and motion they have in a different way. Vollis Simpson’s kinetic sculptures have evolved into kinetic works on canvas. Collectors can savor the excitement of a whirligig in a new medium. Whether a huge moving sculpture or a work on canvas, it is all about exploring shapes, motion, noise, paint application, color and depth.

Motion has become very important to me. A serious car accident left me motionless in 2016. With the help of dedicated professionals and therapists, I am healing, regaining my own motion, and have a new appreciation for the simple things in life – like taking a step! This exhibition’s initial opening would have had more paintings in it, had I not recently lost eight weeks of studio time to my recovery from the accident. There are still exciting whirligig paintings to come!